The Browning Version
The Browning Version
Cathryn Parker
1 - 8 December 2012
Performances
Sat 7:45pm, Mon 7:45pm, Tue 7:45pm, Wed 7:45pm, Thu 7:45pm, Fri 7:45pm, Sat 2:45pm, Sat 7:45pm
Ο ρύθμισης ροδίσματος εκδοχή
A painfully accurate portrayal of thwarted hope and ambition.
Double-bill with Animal Farm
Synopsis
Andrew Crocker-Harris was a brilliant prize-winning Classics scholar at Oxford in the 1920s and believed he had a glittering career in education ahead when he entered the hallowed portals of the minor public school that he is just about to leave due to ill health after nearly 20 years. Married to the unsuitable, haughty, bitter and unfaithful Millie, they can barely disguise the contempt and disgust that now characterises their failed relationship. In the last 24 hours before he leaves the school to which he has given his life and his health, Crocker-Harris is forced to come to terms with how his ideals have turned to ashes in the face of a series of disappointments which border on the tragic. In a painfully accurate portrayal of thwarted hope and ambition, Rattigan both robs his protagonist of all apparent “comforting illusions” before giving him one last opportunity to emerge from the ruins of his career and marriage with his humanity intact. But will he grasp it?
Review
Terence Rattigan’s acclaimed one act play was first performed in 1948 very successfully in London, the 1951 film version starred Michael Redgrave giving, what many hailed, the performance of his life. Born in 1911 Rattigan had a privileged background and was educated at Harrow and then Oxford. The Browning Version is set in a boy’s public school in 1948 and centres on the end of the career of an unpopular and outwardly emotionally cold master, Crocker-Harris, who is forced to take early retirement due to ill health. It is a raw and poignant story of the pain of failed ambition and dreams against a backdrop of English reserve, class and tradition – themes Rattigan dealt with in much of his work.
Director Cathryn Parker, whose
production of Flarepath I saw, clearly
has a strong understanding of and
passion for Rattigan’s work and she
cast this production well. Talented young
newcomer to LLT Jake Kroeger as
Taplow captured the feel of the period
with the right mix of the poise of privilege
and boyish guile needed to attempt to
get pass marks out of the Master dubbed
‘the Himmler of the lower fifth’. Peter
Wellby as the Master Crocker-Harris
was pent up, dessicated and at times
appropriately painful to watch as a casual
act of kindness by his pupil Taplow leads
to the opening of the emotional dam.
Chris Parke as Frank Hunter, the Master
who is rather reluctantly having an affair
with Crocker Harris’ wife, was truthful and
convincing trying to follow decorum while
dealing with his needy lover
without cruelty. Jennifer
Henley, as Millie Crocker-Harris, the bitter wife of
what she perceives to be
her failure of a husband,
had the right measure of the
brittleness and vulnerability
of this unfulfilled woman.
Douglas Wragg as the
Headmaster of the school
delivering devastating
news to Crocker-Harris
regarding his future was
rightly bluff, no nonsense
and professional in his
concern. James Collins as the new
Master taking Crocker-Harris’ place has
a warmth and sensitivity on stage which
lent itself well to the interaction between
him and his predecessor. Emma Ladd
was sparky and brash as Mrs Gilbert
with a distinct whiff of the social climber
over-excited by the prospect of her
status as public school Master’s wife.
David Hare was recently asked to write a
new play - South Downs - to double bill
with a new production of The Browning
Version. That acclaimed production had
critics, once again, calling The Browning
Version ‘indisputably great’. It is indeed
a gem and this production did it justice.
In an economically cruel world of cuts,
recession and redundancies Crocker-Harris’ predicament felt all too relevant.
Lucy fitchett